


The Mailbox Incident

by crimsongalaxies



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M, Neighbours, Prompt Fill, Rated for swearing, Steve is Awkward, nat is all-knowing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 23:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5720365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsongalaxies/pseuds/crimsongalaxies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt on tumblr: "my friend told me lick your mailbox on a dare and when i went to do the dare you were leaving the house to get your mail but i didn’t notice so now you’re staring at me as i lick your mailbox”<br/>I changed it a bit :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mailbox Incident

Steve hated his friends. He wished he’d never ever met them. Actually, no. That wasn’t true. Steve adored his friends and would do anything for them. The problem was: they knew that.

Which is why Steve found himself in front of Bucky Barnes’ house in the middle of a freaking cold winter, at six o’clock in the morning, holding nothing but his phone.

The weekend before this particular incident, Steve and his little group of friends somehow ended up playing truth or dare. Steve, who’d been decidedly not drunk enough to start admitting his crush on pretty, pretty Bucky Barnes, thought it would be an amazing idea to take a dare instead. That this fateful dare came from Nat, who knew way too much about all of them and was probably (definitely) a spy, somehow didn’t fully register with Steve at that time. At least not until the next day, when he valiantly tried to act as if he didn’t remember the dare, but was called out on his bad acting skills eventually by Nat the Spy.  
No matter how much Steve whined and pleaded with her to let it go, because (he now freely admitted) he was oh so drunk and made a stupid call, Nat would only grin slightly (sadistically, as Steve thought) and shake her head.

At some point that day, Steve had the bright idea to just say he’d do it, disappear for some time and return. The dare would be forgotten!  
His mood considerably improved by that idea, Steve got up and put his shoes on.  
“I’m gonna do the dare now. Might as well get it over with.”  
“Yes, Steve, my boy. That’s the spirit. And when you get back, we can play some games again.”, Tony clasped his shoulders in a wannabe fatherly grip.  
“ _Ohh, no!_ Not gonna happen. I’ve learned from this dare. I will never play something with you lot ever again, aside from family friendly board games. Now let me go, Tony. I’m gonna do this shit now!”, Steve said with fake enthusiasm and walked quickly to the door, before anyone could call him on his bluff.  
“Pictures or it didn’t happen!”, Clint suddenly shouted from somewhere on the floor.  
Steve deflated. Shit. “I don’t have my phone on me.”, he tried, but before he could even finish his sentence, Nat’s hand came out of nowhere. “You can borrow mine”, she said. There was definitely an evil glinting in her eyes.  
“ _Shit._ ” Steve knew when he was beaten. “I’m not gonna do it.”  
Collective groaning was his only answer. He kicked off his shoes again, dropped his jacket lazily on the floor and flopped down on the sofa again.

Why did his stupid friends dare him to lick, fucking lick his crush’s fucking _mailbox_!?

The next few days Steve pondered on this question, pushing his doing the dare on and on.  
After four days of dreading it and one sad (on Steve’s part), awkward (also on Steve’s part) small talk with beautiful Bucky, Steve hatched a plan: He would get up really, really early (because Bucky loved to sleep in and because it being winter, there was less of a chance of him being physically seen), run to Bucky’s mailbox, snap a quick picture of him licking the damn thing with Bucky’s name in the shot, and run back to his own house to hide forever. It was a good plan. In theory.

So, now Steve was standing in front of Bucky’s mailbox in his pyjamas, half-freezing to death with his phone clutched in his hand and giving it a murderous look (Steve hated his friends soo much in that moment.).  
Twelve hours ago, it had seemed like a good idea to go while it was still dark. Now Steve realized, it was so dark, he couldn’t take a picture without flash. That’s not a big problem, right? Just turn the damn flash on! Yeah, ha fucking ha. The problem was Steve’s phone was ancient. If it ever had a flash function in its crappy 2MB camera, it certainly didn’t now. Which is why Steve looked at it with a death glare. Realising at some point that glowering won’t grow a flash, he ran into his house again to get a flashlight.  
When he finally found it (“Who the fuck put it there?”), he turned and ran outside his door again, where it happened.  
Steve missed the icy slope on the sidewalk he so carefully walked around before and fell face first into a pile of snow, his phone and flashlight falling hard on the ice.  
“Fuck! Shit! _Fuck!_ ”, Steve cursed, getting up and wiping the cold slush off his face. The flashlight still shone and the phone was “made out of sturdier stuff than those tiny shitty things nowadays” (Steve’s words), so it, too, survived the dive into ice.  
He quickly positioned himself at the mailbox with his tongue touching the sub-zero cold metal and his flashlight above his head.

Just as he was finally snapping the picture, a sleepy voice rasped: “What the fuck’re you doin’, pal?”  
Shit. That was beautiful Bucky! That was beautiful Bucky’s sleepy voice! Steve may or may not have made a sound too close to a whine to be considered anything else.  
He looked at his neighbour and, yeah. That right there was definitely a whine. Beautiful Bucky was standing on his doorstep with sleep tousled hair, squinty eyes and wearing nothing but boxers. Also, perky nipples. _God.._  
“Fuck me”, Steve whispered.  
“What?”  
“Nothing, nothing. I’m soo sorry, I..”, Steve started.  
“Oh, Steve, is this you? I thought I heard someone falling down. Are you alright?”  
“Wha.. No,no, I’m fine. Just uhh..” _‘Just what, Steve??’_  
“Nobody fell?”  
“No! Well, yes. I did, but I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m great.”, Steve rambled awkwardly. Bucky looked at him kinda strangely, Steve thought. ‘Probably thinks I’m crazy. Hell, I _am_ crazy, I just licked his fucking mailbox!’  
“Okay..?”, Bucky lifted an eyebrow. “Now that that’s outta the way .. wanna tell me why you just licked my mailbox?”  
“I .. what? I didn’t lick your mailbox! Why would I lick your mailbox? That’s crazy. I’m not crazy?” ‘Smooth, Steve, smooth. Just shut the hell up!’  
Bucky’s eyebrow climbed higher on his (perfect, so perfect) forehead. A grin started showing on his face as he observed Steve’s ever-growing blush.  
“Didn’t say you were. Still sayin’ you licked my mailbox, though. I saw you, man. You even took a picture and all.” His grin widened as Steve’s face went even redder.  
“I’m sorry I molested your mailbox?”, he whispered pathetically. “Next time I’ll just lick my own and photoshop your name on it” ‘Why didn’t I think of this before?’, Steve thought, as Bucky burst into laughter.  
“Next time? You makin’ a habit out of licking other people’s stuff?”  
Steve’s blush started creeping down his neck and his chest.  
“Well, no. Not their mailboxes at least. This was just a dare.”  
“Not their mailboxes, huh? What other stuff of me do you wanna lick, then?” Bucky’s eyes glinted. He completely ignored the fact that Steve just told him why in God’s name he licked his mailbox.  
“Uh .. I .. uh”, Steve stuttered. Bucky sobered up quickly.  
“Sorry. That was totally inappropriate. You’re my neighbour! I’m sorry, Steve.”  
“I wanna lick all of you..r stuff. All of your _stuff_ , yeah. _Not_ you.”  
Bucky’s stupidly hot grin was back at Steve’s probably unintended confession.  
“Not even gonna ask me to dinner, before you lick all of my stuff? Or breakfast, considering the time? I have standards, you know?” Steve had the overwhelming urge to hide his still burning face behind the mailbox.  
“You want me to ask you out?”, he whispered. Beautiful Bucky with his perfect body and cute nipples and bedhead, who just saw Steve lick his mailbox like a crazy person, wanted to go out with him??  
“I sure do. And if you show me that picture you just too, I might even say yes.”

Steve stumbled up to Bucky’s door, eager to embarrass himself even more in front of his crush, if that meant he got a date with the man. He fumbled with his phone and thrust it into Bucky’s waiting hand who then proceeded to stare at the picture for a long minute while laughing so hard he started to hiccup.  
When he finally calmed down a bit, Steve asked quietly, his face as red as it got:  
“So .. will you go out with me?” Bucky still chuckled.  
“Of course I will, you big lug. But my ass is freezing off out here and we wouldn’t want that, right? You still gotta lick it. So let me put on some clothes and I’ll come over to yours. Then we’ll have breakfast. I wanna get to the part where you lick all of my stuff. Chop, chop!”, he slapped Steve’s ass as he turned around to head inside.  
“Get to breakfast-making!”

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't rip me apart :)  
> My tumblr is [crimsongalaxies](http://crimsongalaxies.tumblr.com/)


End file.
